Nevin's Data "Points"

A new survey once again highlighted a consistent regret among American workers.  According to the survey by American Century Investments, they wish they had saved more for retirement.  Now, only about a third shared that regret—but it was more than twice the number that had regrets about career, personal relationships, not doing enough to enjoy life—not to mention “not being a better person overall.” [i] Now, we all have regrets about certain life decisions. There are regrets about that “Reply All” email that was perhaps a little  too  honest, the hours spent at work at the expense of family, perhaps the  cessation  of piano lessons, and even a (too) sedentary lifestyle and bad diet. Some we regret immediately—while some come only after the passage of time. Some we learn from—and vow never to repeat. And some—unfortunately—come too late to do anything but live with the consequences. And then there are those regrets—that could be remedied—but a...

Do plan sponsors really know what participants want? Back in the early 1990s, there was a very popular “self-help” book on relationships titled “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.” The basic premise, of course, was that men and women have different means and styles of communication – that, in essence, they might as well be from different planets (hence the title). It suffers, as most such works do, from over-generalizing (to say the least – the hidden points system ostensibly maintained by each gender struck me as truly bizarre, even in the 1990s) – but it no doubt stimulated some relationship conversations, and if it opened some of those doors – well, that’s a good thing. The relationship between plan sponsors and participants isn’t generally fraught with the same layers of complexity, but every so often a survey comes out that makes me think otherwise. The latest was a report by American Century which surveyed (separately, but both during Q1 2019) 1,500 re...